Dignity

I heard that it is now a requirement that office workers in one of the Metro Manila local government areas have to have an annual medical examination. This would include urinalysis, chest x-ray, fecal analysis, and other tests. In order that the company for whom they work can maintain it’s business license all employees must submit to this. Now if this were for establishments that serve food or are involved in catering I may be able to better understand the rationale, but office workers? I’m amazed. I’m doubly amazed given the quality of the piped water (in the same local government area) which itself is quite un-potable containing lots of e-coli and fecal traces—could there be a connection between the awful quality of the water and the need for office workers health checks? It would seem logical to start by sorting out the water supply as the first priority, but then that is a more difficult and costly operation—community health in action, dealing with the symptoms perhaps?!

My guess is that the need for medical checks to retain business licenses, as well as the awful quality of the water is or will be accepted by those affected. It would not be accepted in most economies, in fact the suggestion would not be made in the first place out of respect for people’s individual rights. In the Philippines though the most unusual and onerous requirements tend to be put onto people, and they are accepted, sometimes with a shrug, but usually no more than that. Getting a business license in the first place is an awful process often involving the need to buy unnecessary fire extinguishers from key suppliers, but everybody does it don’t they?!

So why do Filipinos put up with these assaults on their freedom of choice? Shouldn’t the individual office worker be the one who decides whether or not they need or should have a medical, and at a frequency of their choice? Imagine the strain on inadequate medical facilities by the imposition of this requirement, the medical hours spent carrying out checks when those same scarce resources should be treating people who are sick. I remember once applying for a work permit via a developed country’s embassy in the Philippines (this was I later learned a mistake for me, as life would have been a lot more straightforward had I applied from the UK). A medical was necessary, held at a central facility in Manila which appeared to be in business for no other reason than carrying out Embassy required medicals; as part of the medical it was necessary to strip naked, I have to wonder why?—an action of probably greater embarrassment to the average Filipino than to a Westerner like myself. But everybody seemed to be doing it.

I really hate to say this but there is often a subservience by Filipinos that is frankly not going to help to propel the Philippines forward. People put up with so much hassle and personal inconvenience, even embarrassment forced on them by the requirements of those in authority, be they security guards telling people that “you can only come in this door you must go out through the other one,” whilst poking about with sticks in women’s handbags looking for things that they never find, or a city government which has decided to create yet another rule to be arbitrally enforced, yet subject to massive and usually custodial penalties for non compliance, and which will achieve no more than to make the lives of their constituents more difficult. Why on earth do people put up with this?

People have said, “well isn’t it the same in Italy . . . .”—yes to a point, Italy is a place with endless rules which nobody pays much attention to, but there is an attitude of “live and let live”—being caught in an infringement will often be shrugged off by the enforcer on the spot; alas not so here in the Philippines there are masses of enforcers (both official and self appointed) and often they don’t have much of a sense of humour, or for that matter demonstrate much common sense . . .

My wish would be that the centres of power in the Philippines (and there are an infinite number) re-examine their priorities and get the difficult things sorted out first like the traffic, the water quality, drainage and law and order, rather than just scoring easy hits at the expense of their fellow countrymen’s dignity (e.g., office workers annual medicals). Treat Filipinos (and foreign friends for that matter!) with greater respect for individual dignity and choice, treat them like human beings please, rather than like a flock of submissive sheep. Should this wish come true then the Philippines and Filipinos can reach much greater heights. –Mike Wooton, Manila Times

Mike can be contacted at mawootton@gmail.com.